Linda Dounia: Stillness, Gratefulness & Listening to your Gut (Interview)

Who is Linda Dounia?

Linda Dounia is an experimental artist, designer, and curator who investigates the philosophical implications of technocapitalism and its role in furthering systems of inequity.

Her practice is an active process for decolonizing her mind and untangling herself from the fragmented and exclusionary narratives that are associated with her identity by imagining alternative realities and futures. She is inspired by science fiction and speculative design in this endeavor.

Her work mediates alternative truths and excluded ways of being and doing. It is formed in the liminal space between the immaterial and the material through the combination of analog and digital mediums – acrylic, ink, pastels, markers, scanners, vector, video, GANs, generative AI, code, and a range of materials not intended for art making.

Her work has been exhibited at Christie’s, Larsen Warner Gallery, Unit London, Art X Lagos, Partcours, Art Basel (Basel, Miami), The Dakar Biennale, Artsy NFT, Digital Art Fair Asia, and Art Dubai. She has curated exhibitions on Feral File, SuperRare, and Foundation.

What is something you wish someone had told you before becoming an artist?

That someone like me could be an artist.

At various points in my life, the world told me in different ways that it would be a foolish and wasteful endeavor to try to be an artist. First, it was because adults would laugh at me when I said I wanted to make art for the rest of my life. Then, it was my teachers who droned on about not wasting my time in art classes and taking my aptitude for sciences more seriously. After that, it was my design managers at work who ignored my pleading for more craft-based roles and pushed me up the managerial ladder. I think all these people meant well. They wanted to see me succeed. But an insidious inner voice grew louder and louder as the years went by, reinforcing everything I had heard from a young age: art was not for me, or people like me. It didn’t help that I was only exposed to examples of Black women artists from the continent later in life. So I couldn’t ever really imagine myself as one until recently.

What does your creating process look like?

A joyful mess that I create and try to resolve. It’s wonderfully painful and exhausting, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I like to combine mediums that shouldn’t work together, use tools that aren’t intended for art-making, and break as much as possible while I make.

It’s a kind of chaos that I don’t try to control because I have learned that my best work comes from happy accidents – moments that I couldn’t have planned for and never see coming.

Who are 2-3 artists you admire or respect that you think deserve (even) more recognition?

I learned about Auriea Harvey only last year (I know right, preposterous!). Her career spans 4 decades in digital art and her work resonates with me deeply. I recently was finally able to collect an edition of her work on Tezos and I can’t help but imagine that my life would have taken a very different turn had I known of her earlier.

Then there is Alma Thomas, one of the greatest abstract expressionists of her generation who does not get the flowers she deserves. It’s wild to me that when she only began to dedicate herself to her own art in 1960, she was then at the end of a 35-year career as an art teacher. She died in 1978. What she created in those 18 years though will forever impact abstract art. She was also the first Black woman with a solo show at the Whitney Museum and exhibited at the White House.

What activity do you fall into when you are trying to enhance your creativity?

I think of creativity as a black hole that’s constantly drawing in what gravitates around it. So to me, anything can inspire a mark and the way it’s made. I try to keep myself soft to allow this process to happen as it naturally does. I spend a lot of time looking at art and design (which to me can be art).

I also spend a lot of time just looking at stuff. It’s a joy to find beauty in the most mundane things, the way someone says something, the waxiness of a new leaf, beetroot stains on a chopping board, the hazy glow of everything after trying to stare at the sun.

What do you benefit the most when working with NFTs and the blockchain?

First, autonomy and transparency. I own what I make. I decide what I mint. I know who my collectors are.. I can track how my work changes hands. I feel empowered to make decisions about my career with what I learn.

Then there is this idea that by minting NFTs, I am leaving traces of myself on the blockchain, for anyone to see in real-time. I like the poetry of that. It makes me feel like there will be no need for someone other than me to survey my legacy when I am gone. It will have been right there from the start.

What is one thing you think artists should focus more on, and why?

This is probably more relevant for artists in web3, but practicing stillness. I hear stories of burnout all the time in the space. We don’t seem to feel that we have a license to take breaks and be still. Resting is an integral part of building the art-making muscles (much like it is for building literal muscles).

Web3 is constrained by social media algorithms which are very greedy when it comes to content! It’s unsustainable to keep up with them. In the human versus algorithm battle, the algorithm always wins because it doesn’t need to take a nap.

What’s the hardest part of being an artist?

That’s a hard one. I think I am still in my honeymoon phase with being an artist. I have wanted to be an artist for such a long time that finally getting the chance to be one still feels unreal to me, like it could be snatched away at any point. I try to enjoy all facets of the creative life, even the challenging ones.

The commercial aspect of being an artist can be challenging and tough. Making art and selling it are two very different things. While I spent pretty much my whole life learning the former, I have no experience in the latter. During my time on the blockchain, I have learned to decouple the two. The web3 market moves at a dizzying pace, so I understood at some point that I had to give myself some grace while I learned its intricacies.

What skill should anyone harvest early in their career that will pay off massively for years?

I think it’s important to learn to listen to your gut and honor it when making decisions. I feel like I have avoided a lot of potentially harmful situations or experiences by doing that. It takes a while to sharpen this skill, perhaps a lifetime, but I think it’s an endeavor worth pursuing.

Why do you create art?

I don’t think I have a choice. For me, it’s a way to communicate that feels as natural and inevitable as language.

What’s a book or an article that has greatly influenced your life?

The first was Sophie’s World, an introduction to the history of philosophy by Jostein Gaarder, which I read in my early teens. I was insatiably curious as a child, and most adults seemed intent on painting reality as immutable to me. According to them, the world was as it was, and that was that.

After reading that book though, which asked more questions than it answered, I was left with the conviction that asking questions, no matter how unanswerable, was a key to unlocking my agency over reality. I became even more curious and reading became my way of feeding that impulse. I enjoyed the feeling of reading something that seemed to shift the very ground beneath me and haven’t stopped since. There have been many more books that have greatly influenced my life since Sophie’s World, but it was the catalyst.

***Pointe de Bel Air*** *by Linda Dounia*

What habit or practice has changed your life the most?

Writing. Humans are complicated and very good at concealing parts of themselves to themselves. Laying myself bare to the page is how I keep learning myself. Reading through pages of my old journals is how I find traces of the changes that occurred within me and facets that still hold. When I lose myself, I can always collect the pieces of me that I have left in my writing. Writing keeps me whole and has saved me many times from fragmenting beyond repair.

What does success look like to you?

At the moment it means time, resources, and headspace to enjoy my family and friends and to deepen my craft.

***Practicing Stillness*** *by Linda Dounia*

What is your favorite failure?

College. I was studying things that didn’t matter to me (because I was told I was good at them) and wasn’t listening to my heart. I dropped out my junior year and felt like I had failed to reach the potential so many teachers told me I had. In hindsight, failing to reach this potential is what brought me closer to what I actually wanted to do – art.

What are you willing to struggle for?

My family and my craft. Every decision I make is to bring closer to these two things and I would move the earth not to erode my relationship with them.

***Sparrows do not fear the sun*** *by Linda Dounia*

Which of your past experiences/learnings have set you up for success in the present?

I have always felt like the odd one out growing up. I bent myself into all sorts of shapes to please other people, because I thought it would bring me closer to them when, in actuality, it only carried me farther from myself. Then I met a group of people when I moved to Mauritius who have become more than friends, they are family. They were shadow artists like me, who had also felt odd growing up. They brought me closer to myself and helped me accept who I was at my core. The right friends can change your life, forever.

What is one strong opinion you have?

Craft is about love. Deepening it is choosing to show up every day.

What would you say to your 25-year-old self?

I was 25 in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic. The decisions I made during that time have been some of the best decisions I have ever made. Taking a sabbatical from work. Spending time investing in my relationship with my craft and my partner. Starting therapy. Healing my relationship with my parents. Choosing joy.

Learn more from Linda

Something to read:

The Ever-expanding World of Linda Dounia

Something to watch:

Ask Me Anything with Linda Dounia

Something to listen to:

Linda Dounia - Art, Design & NFTs

Get in Touch with Linda

The best way to get in touch with Linda is via Twitter or her website.